When wearing Biciamo's Oakland Cycle Club jerseys we sometimes get asked if we are Raiders fans. We usually answer we are Golden State Warriors fans, go Dubs!
We each have two jerseys and two pairs of cycling shorts. Every night we wash the cycling clothes we wore that day. Here’s a look at the inside of Pete’s Assos cycling bib overalls - they have lots of contoured chamois pads to absorb sweat and prevent saddle sores.
We ride six days, then take a rest day. On our rest day we wash all our other cycling clothes: gloves, sun sleeves and hats. In Japan they often have these great drying racks.
We spent two nights at Lake Toya so we could take a rest day and get some broken spokes repaired. Luckily we found a bike shop with a skilled mechanic less than 10 kilometers from Ohno Pension, our hotel.
Day 8 Lake Toya to Mori, 117 kilometers with 1,035 meters of climbing
It was a misty, gray morning when we started riding. Here's Pete in front of the hotel sign. We took to calling it the "Ohyes" Pension because we enjoyed it there so much!
And across the street was beautiful Lake Toya. We rode south along the lake and then out towards the coast.
Our first stop was at about 20 kilometers when we spotted this sign that had strawberries on it.
Today's delicious Hokkaido milk treat: strawberry ice cream!
We liked riding along the coast, especially when there were interesting rock formations.
This section along the coast had extremely curvy roads.
When it straightened back out, we passed many docked fishing boats and this Shinto shrine that includes an old fishing boat now filled with plants.
We think these floats will be used to mark the tops of crab pots in the sea.
There were mounds of scallop shells along this part of the Hokkaido coast where scallop farming is done by sowing scallop larvae and then dredging the bottom to harvest the mature scallops.
This Yakumo manhole cover shows how far south we were on Hokkaido.
We passed several Shinto shrines as we rode along the coast. Our favorite was this one because it had inari, foxes, guarding the shrine.
Throughout Japan the inari theme is common in Shinto shrines. And here on Hokkaido there are still red foxes living in the forests.
We haven't seem many cyclists who are touring Japan like us. But today we rode a bit with a Japanese touring cyclist. We've gotten pretty good at telling people in Japanese about our length of Japan ride, but we still need more practice listening and comprehending. In this case, he told us where he was going, but we didn't understand - too bad!
After bathing we went to dinner at a nearby ramen restaurant that featured jigoku ramen.
Their ramen was especially spicy, so we translated jigoku and it came back "hell." It's a good thing that we like spicy food!
Day 9, Mori to Aomori, 50 kilometers with 366 meters of climbing
Today we passed the Bike Angel baton from Pete's sister Denise. Niecey kept an eye on us while we rode our three US self-supported tours earlier this year too!
Our friend Claire will take over as Bike Angel for the rest of our Japan tour. She lives in Perth and we met her on the Laos cycling trip last November.
We rolled out of Mori early in the morning. Our ride took us through Onuma Quasi-National Park that we had visited with our friends Paul and Julie. At first it was wooded and scenic.
Who could resist taking a photo with Doraemon? Not us!
We met two South Korean touring cyclists at Lake Onuma. They had toured in Japan a number of times.
We got a kick out of talking with them about their trip. They were camping each night, and after seeing how much gear they were carrying, we were doubly glad to be staying in hotels!
We got some different views of the lake.
We rode into Hakodate and we left our bike and gear at the Ferry. We took a cab to Goryokaku. Originally built in 1869 as a fort to protect Hakodate from possible Russian invasion, it is in the shape of a star because this allowed for more Japanese gun posts on the walls.
These days Goryokaku is a park with a lake for pedal boating.
The park is filled with mature cherry trees. It must be magnificent in spring!
This view shows the park and Goryokaku Tower, our next stop.
Since this was our last day in Hokkaido, we wanted to have the best ice cream we could get. We went to Milkissimo in the Goryokaku Tower.
We tried a total of nine gelato flavors: on the left is pumpkin, caramel macchiato and green tea. On the right is mango, plum and passion fruit.
And Kristina is holding a cup with gianduja, orange and vanilla bean. Wow!
We headed back to the Hakodate ferry and rolled our bike on.
The ferry was huge and filled with trucks, cars, motorcycles, a few bikes and lots of people passengers.
We have loved our time on beautiful Hokkaido. Here was our last look at the island for this trip.
About four hours later we arrived at Honshu, the main Japanese island. Here's the beautiful sunlight we saw as we got close to the Aomori dock.
Day 10, Aomori to Lake Towada, 69 kilometers with 1,520 meters of climbing
This was our view of Aomori from our 13th floor hotel room. It's a city of about 300,000 people.
We rode along the Arakawa River as we left the downtown.
Pete is doing his best fierce Guardian pose.
We passed a few apple and kiwi orchards. In this orchard, the apples have been bagged individually on the tree, so that the fruit will remain unblemished.
We rolled by this big solar farm. We've seen quite a lot of solar panels in Japan.
We learned that Aomori gets the most snow of any Japanese city, 30% more than Sapporo which is the next snowiest. Notice how high this highway sign is next to Pete. In winter it would still be visible, even if there were two meters of snow on the ground.
But snow was the furthest thing from our minds. It was hot and humid as we rode. After a pretty challenging climb we arrived at the peak. We were so pleased to see a restaurant with vending machines, softos and public bathrooms!
Softos were a great way to cool off. No, Kristina did not eat both of these cones.
As we got further up into the mountains it became quite foggy, which did make it cooler. We came upon the Nakari Wood Art Studio.
There were wonderful wooden sculptures of horses.
Kristina is with her new horse friend.
We rode along the Oirase River, which was beautiful.
The northern part of the Oirase is in the Towada-Hachimantai National Park. We learned that the sound of the river is one of Japan's 100 Soundscapes, and thought this was very Japanese and very cool.
We enjoyed the sights and sounds of all the rapids and waterfalls. Towards the end of the ride we got caught in rain.
Day 11, Lake Towada to Kakunodate, 134 kilometers with 1,992 m of climbing
Today was the longest ride of our length of Japan tour, so we were riding by 7:30 am. Kristina is with the proprietress of our hotel, a lovely woman.
First we rode along Lake Towada, a large caldera lake that is fed by the Oirase River.
It was threatening to rain, but it didn't.
As we climbed up to the top of the caldera we even saw some blue sky.
In Japan, the green cross symbol is common in road construction.
This is buckwheat growing in front of timber trees.
The white flowers show that it still has awhile before it will be harvested.
We purchased puffed buckwheat bars that had a beautiful label.
Here's another Shinto shrine with a shimenawa, rice straw rope.
Just up the hill from the Tori gate and Kristina was this charming stone staircase and smaller shrine.
We're seeing lots of vegetable and flower gardens on Honshu too.
This shrine was in the middle of the garden.
Day 11 had a lot of climbing. We rode up some gravel roads into thick forest.
The views from the top made all the climbing worth it, although it looks a bit foggy in the photos.
We were really tired after our big day, so when we arrived in Kakunodate we bathed quickly and went to dinner. Afterwards we walked around Kakunodate, where we saw these interesting floats.
Day 12, Kakunodate to Nikaho, 95 kilometers with 856 meters of climbing
Our curiosity piqued, we read about the Kakunodate festival of the Shinmei and Yakushido shrines. Following a 350 year old tradition, young men pull these floats through the town.
From the Kakunodate tourist website, "Whenever two floats meet, in order to determine which will proceed first, the bearers throw all their strength into driving the floats together in a massive collision." It was sure to be a boisterous party and we were sorry to miss it, but at least we got to see them setting up for it.
Pete found and purchased a new hanky with a bike theme. A hanky is essential in Japan, given the summer humidity.
We were able to visit Buke-yashiki, the Kakunodate Warrior Quarter, so named because of the samurai houses there.
This is the Odano Manor, known for its middle class samurai style house and traditional gardens.
The small details like this vase with flowers on its wooden coaster against the shoji screen wall look so beautiful to us.
We spent most of our time exploring the Aoyagi Samurai Manor Museum. Kristina is in front of the prestigious main gate, which in 1860 the Aoyaki family was given special permission by the Kakunodate feudal lord to build.
Like most of the manors in Kakunodate, each has its own stamp. We weren't surprised that Aoyagi's stamp showed their gate.
Pete is in front of the main house that has a well-preserved thatched roof. During the time of the samurais only very high status visitors were allowed to use this entrance.
The grounds and gardens of the museum complex were charming.
There were exhibits showing the samurai armor.
Kristina is posing as a samurai warrior, but she doesn't look too fierce.
The Kakunodate manhole cover features samurais.
Today's ride was one of our most picturesque. Here are more rice fields against a backdrop of Japanese Cypress trees that are in a forestry plantation.
These logs are being dried and then will be transported to a saw mill.
We loved seeing these lotus flowers in a large pond.
On Honshu we are seeing more traditional Japanese architecture. Many of the houses have beautiful tile roofs.
Towards the end of the ride we were back near the north western coast of Honshu. We liked the quality of sunlight on the tree and rice field.
Day 13, Nikaho to Atsumi Onsen, 84 kilometers with 676 meters of climbing
Our hotel in Nikaho was wonderful! Pete looks happy because he's soaked in their Japanese baths and now will have a hearty Japanese breakfast.
This was our view from our hotel room, looking out at the Sea of Japan.
The Nikaho manhole cover has a similar view at sunset. It feels natural for us to be on the west coast of Japan.
We noticed we had a broken spoke on our rear wheel, so we taped it up and started riding south along the coast. What a sweet location for these houses.
We saw a few people surfing at Kasagawa Beach.
All the saltwater does cause rust here, and this sign looked even better to us in its rusted state.
We stopped for a closer look at this pretty wooden temple.
We liked its dragon columns.
We really enjoy riding in Japan! But we broke another spoke on the back wheel, and it got really wobbly.
We only exchanged greetings with this touring cyclist. He is carrying a lot of gear.
It was threatening to rain, so we only stopped for a quick look at the Kamo Aquarium. We would have liked to see their jellies exhibit.
The rain caught us for the last hour of our ride, but the temperature stayed at about 24 degrees Celsius, so we weren't cold as we rode. We rode slowly since our broken spokes made the bike feel unstable.
This temple has an amazing location on this coastal point just north of our hotel in Atsumi Onsen. We were relieved when we finished riding.
On our rest day Pete took our wheel into Niigata to get the spokes fixed and now it feels great!
Next we continue riding south on Honshu.
